Jude

by Kate Morgenroth

  But Jude did nothing.

  Two days later Jude was shoveling his food down as fast as he could when he sensed someone approaching. He waited, fork clutched in his fist. He felt someone stop just behind him and lean over his shoulder. Then he heard the hawking noise, and the spit landed in the middle of his beans.

  A shout of laughter went up around the hall. A rough hand clapped him on the shoulder and a voice said, “Eat up, now.”

  Jude stared at the puddle of phlegm sitting in his food, listened to the laughter around him, and bent his head so they wouldn’t be able to see his flaming face.

  After that he was fair game. He had to be careful where he walked because whenever possible an inmate would stick out a sly foot or deliver a jarring shove that sent Jude sprawling out on the cold concrete. When he became adept at keeping his feet, they reached out with stiffened thumb and forefinger to pinch whatever part of his body was closest. The pain was sharp, surprising. At night, when he got undressed, Jude could count his bruises from the day.

  And Jude said nothing.

  He told himself it was a part he was playing, but he was a little quicker than he needed to be in scuttling after the guards, and when he wilted under the glares of the inmates, it was maybe more convincing than it should have been. There was something—a splinter of true feeling—that made the pretending real.

  Jude had lived most of his life not knowing when the next blow was going to land. He had faced down the barrel of a gun, with his father sprawled on the floor beside him. He had let himself be collared and put away for something he didn’t do. He had been afraid, but he had always been able to maintain his composure. The fear hadn’t affected him this way before. Something was different, but he didn’t know what.

  He figured it out while lying awake one night, long after the noise of the prison had quieted to a murmur. Jude realized that it wasn’t fear that had broken him. He had learned to live with that long ago.

  For as long as Jude could remember, he had dreamed of showing his mother that he was worth something. He had promised himself that he would do something to make her say, “Thank God for Jude. What would I have done without him?” He would give up anything, even his pride, to hear her say that.

  Now, finally, he thought that he might be close. And Jude discovered that hope was more powerful than fear. You could break a man with hope.

  27

  SIX DAYS LEFT. Then five. Then four. Jude spent the nights imagining the inmates on the day that he was released: their consternation, their anger, their envy. Then it wouldn’t matter how much of a coward he was—at least, that’s what he told himself.

  Jude made it through the weekend, though he suspected that his survival was due mostly to the fact that Slim Slam was enjoying the spectacle a little too much to want it to end. But Jude didn’t care how he made it. All he cared about was that it was Monday, November 3, and he had only two more days to wait.

  He had no idea of how Anna was doing in the polls because the televisions were on a closed circuit, controlled by the prison. They didn’t show any news programs—only soap operas, talk shows, and sitcoms. A horrible thought occurred to him: What if she didn’t win? What then? It was going to be a tough election, that much he knew. Anna was up against an incumbent. Even worse, too many people shared Deberry’s idea that women just shouldn’t be in politics. Someone had jokingly remarked that Deberry and his constituents still hadn’t gotten over the fact that women had the vote. Jude remembered Harry talking about how the only way for Anna to have a real chance was if she stirred things up and brought more people out to vote. If Anna won, it would be because of Jude’s sacrifice—and she would win, he decided. It was impossible to think that he might have gone through so much only to have her lose.

  Tuesday morning Jude didn’t get through as many pots as usual. The supervisor yelled at him, but he barely noticed. Jude didn’t care because he was thinking of Anna. He wondered where she was at that moment. He wondered what she was thinking. He wondered if she knew.

  Tuesday came … and went.

  Jude hadn’t expected to hear from Anna, but he was still somehow disappointed when the last count of the night was called and they shut down the lights. Tomorrow, Jude thought. Tomorrow for sure.

  He was right. Two guards came for him the next morning.

  She was waiting for him in one of the private visiting rooms. When he entered, she was standing in the corner by the barred window, looking out. The guard unlocked the cuffs and left the room, and only when the door had closed behind him did Anna turn. Then Jude could see that her face was tight and hard.

  He hadn’t meant to speak first, but it burst out of him.

  “You lost,” he said. He knew it the moment he looked at her. “I’m sorry. I know how much you wanted to beat Deberry.”

  She looked at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

  “I won the election,” she said.

  “What?” He wasn’t sure he had heard her right.

  “Deberry’s out. I’m in.”

  She said it with such grimness, with so little pleasure, that Jude didn’t know how to respond.

  She went on. “I told myself that the day after the election I would come here and get some answers.” She moved to the table and sat down. Then she motioned to the seat across from her. It was like the day they met in the police station interrogation room, a table between them, the real chasm so much wider.

  What had gone wrong?

  “I want to know why. Forget about the drugs. That was bad, but …” She waved her hand. “Let’s forget about that. Why didn’t you take the plea bargain? That’s what I want to know.”

  She was supposed to thank him. She was supposed to tell him how grateful she was. She wasn’t supposed to second-guess the plan after it had worked.

  “But it won you the election,” he said.

  “So that’s your excuse. I’ve wondered for the past seven months what your excuse would be, but I didn’t think of that one—turning it around so that protecting your drug-dealer friends somehow won me the election. It’s so twisted I can’t imagine someone thinking of it, but you keep on surprising me, Jude. And I thought as DA I’d seen it all.”

  He was suddenly confused. He started to say, “Didn’t Harry …,” but trailed off before he finished.

  “Didn’t Harry what?” she said. “Harry stood up for you as long as he could, but even he gave up on you when you didn’t take the plea. He said he did everything but get down on his knees, and he couldn’t budge you. I was still hoping that you would have some sort of explanation—something, anything—but I see now I was as stupid and blind as all the parents that come through my office. All of them hoping that there was some sort of misunderstanding and that their child couldn’t possibly have meant to do these things they so obviously and willfully did.”

  “I didn’t,” Jude said.

  “Didn’t what?” she demanded.

  “I didn’t sell drugs to anyone. I didn’t take the plea bargain because Harry told me not to. He said if we went to trial, it would give you a chance to show the city that you were exactly the kind of person they needed.” He glanced at her and couldn’t detect any encouragement, but he went on anyway. “It was Harry’s idea for me to pretend to sell the drugs. He arranged for the phone call to come just when you were getting home. It was his idea that I should let the answering machine take it so you would hear. And it was Harry who told me I couldn’t take the plea bargain. It was all Harry’s plan and it worked.”

  He braved another look and felt that traitor—hope—spring up again. She was frowning, but not in displeasure. In concentration. She hadn’t automatically discounted it.

  “But what about the policemen’s testimony?” she said. “And those boys from your school?”

  “See, I did take Nick to where he could buy drugs, but I never sold them. It’s why I agreed …” He was about to explain that that was why he had originally agreed to Harry’s scheme—to stop h
is actions from wrecking her career—but when he saw the growing disbelief, the deepening disgust, the words faded before he could say them.

  “I see you’ve learned the art of thinking fast and talking faster,” she said. “You’ll have an answer for anything I think up, won’t you?”

  “The truth,” he said. “Only the truth.”

  “When things like this happen, there’s proof. Do you have any of that?”

  Proof. She was right, there had to be proof.

  “The kid who called me,” Jude said. “Did you ever get that phone number?”

  She shook her head. “Phone booth.”

  “Whose idea was it to go back to the house just then?” Jude pressed.

  “Mine. I had forgotten something that I needed for the evening.”

  Jude had never known how Harry had worked that. Desperately he said, “Did you ever find anyone who actually said I sold them drugs?”

  “So maybe you filtered them through Nick. Everyone knew you sold to him,” she said.

  “Harry knows,” he said. “Harry has the proof.”

  “Harry would never have done this.”

  “He did it to help you,” Jude said. “He did it so you would get elected. He knew how much you wanted it.”

  “I never wanted my only child convicted of selling drugs.”

  “But I did it for you,” he repeated helplessly. “Harry said—”

  “Oh, stop it. Harry didn’t have anything to do with it. You know how I know that? If nothing else, Harry would never have left you in here.”

  Jude didn’t know how to argue with that. He would have said the same. Jude had trusted that belief so firmly he had staked five years of his life on it.

  As if she could hear his thoughts, Anna said, “Five years, Jude. Did you hear the judge? There’s no possibility of parole.”

  He tried one last, desperate question. “Then why wouldn’t I have taken a plea bargain? If I’m not telling the truth?”

  She looked at him a long moment. “That’s what I came here to ask you. I admit I had hoped for some sort of explanation, but now I see that was expecting too much. I will tell you one thing, though. I don’t see how we can have any relationship if you don’t give up this ridiculous story about Harry setting you up. You need to admit what you’ve done.”

  Jude thought that he would do anything for her. He thought there were no limits to what he would sacrifice. This was just one more lie on top of a dozen others. But this was a different kind of lie; it was the kind without eventual vindication—without a hero’s reward at the end. If he admitted that he had done it, he would be giving up the hope of ever convincing her otherwise.

  Even so, he meant to tell her what she wanted to hear. He meant to say, “I did it.” But when he opened his mouth, instead of “I did it,” he said, “I didn’t. I told you the truth.”

  “I guess there’s nothing more to say.” Anna stood up to leave, but then she paused—and she did say something else. She said, “What did I ever do to deserve a son like you?”

  He didn’t watch her as she left the room. He spread his palms out on the table to push himself up, but he ended up just looking at the backs of his hands and the tiny lines that crisscrossed, like all the possible paths in his life not taken.

  A moment later Jude heard the door open again. He expected the guards, come to take him to the cellblock, but there was only silence behind him. He twisted around to look.

  Harry stood there, just inside the door.

  Jude stared at him, his hands still flat on the table, as if glued there.

  Harry circled around and sat in the chair that Anna had occupied.

  “Harry?” Jude said it uncertainly, as if making sure that the man in front of him was the same one he had known for two years—the Harry he knew had always been understanding and supportive. It was true that sometimes Jude thought he sensed a distance—a sort of reserve—but Harry had always tried to act as a bridge between Anna and Jude. Maybe, he thought, grasping at straws, it was still part of the plan. Maybe something had happened that made it necessary for Harry to keep things secret for a little longer.

  “Jude,” Harry replied, and his tone killed the maybes.

  “So it’s true? You’re not going to tell her?”

  Harry just looked at him.

  “How can you do this? How can you do this to me?”

  Harry still didn’t speak.

  “You know I didn’t have anything to do with it. How can you leave me here, when you know I’m innocent?”

  Harry shook his head. “You’re hardly innocent, Jude.”

  “What?”

  “You were the one who made it possible for Nick to get the drugs that he OD’d on.”

  “But you don’t get five years for showing someone where to buy drugs,” Jude said. “You get it for selling, and you know I didn’t.”

  “I don’t know that. I know that police officers saw you in the projects with him several times. I know all the kids at your school thought you were getting him drugs. I know that you understood it would destroy your mother if it ever came out that you had anything to do with drugs. I know that you lie when it suits you. That’s all I know.” Harry spoke quietly, as if reasoning with him.

  “Harry,” Jude pleaded. “What’s going on? I don’t … I thought you were …” Jude stopped, unsure of what exactly he thought Harry had been. He said, “I thought you were my friend.” Surely he had been that, at least.

  “Why did you think that?”

  “Because … because you always tried to work things out between me and Anna. You stood up for me. You told her you thought I had potential….”

  “I did that for Anna. Most of the time she was nearly out of her mind with guilt and worry about you. So I tried to make her feel better about things. I tried to keep her going. She didn’t want to hear the truth from me. The truth would have killed her. Hell, it nearly did.”

  “The truth?” Jude said. The conversation seemed straight from a familiar nightmare.

  “That you’re not worth it,” Harry said. “You were given every possible opportunity to turn yourself around—and what did you do? You got yourself mixed up in drugs when you knew that it would ruin your mother’s career. The career that was more important to her than anything. But maybe that was the problem.”

  Jude felt the words fall into his heart like stones dropping in a well.

  “I’ve done everything for her,” Harry said, for the first time showing some emotion. “The last seventeen years of my life I’ve been trying to make her happy, to give her what she wanted. Maybe it makes up a little bit for having a kid like you.”

  “But I did help,” Jude protested. “I know I made a mistake, but I tried to fix it, and I did—she won. I kept my word to you,” Jude said, desperate now. “Without that, I wouldn’t be looking at five years. Five years, for God’s sake.”

  “There’s that other matter,” Harry said. “Did you think I’d forget?”

  Jude shook his head, not to contradict, but in confusion.

  Harry’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Your father. What you did to your father.”

  Jude had forgotten that he’d let Harry believe he was involved in his father’s death. He said desperately, “Harry, listen to me. I didn’t have anything to do with that. I just let you believe it because I wanted the questions to stop, and I thought you could stop them. Listen, if I could prove to you that I didn’t have anything to do with my father’s murder, would you help me get out?”

  “And how would I do that?” Harry said.

  “With that plan you had that would overturn …” Jude let the sentence fade away. “There was no plan.”

  “No,” Harry said. “Of course not.”

  “Never any plan,” Jude said, finally beginning to understand.

  “My first concern was Anna. She’s gone through hell with this thing.” Harry got up, the chair grinding as it slid back across the floor. “And if I have anything to say about it,
you won’t have the chance to hurt her again. Ever.”

  Jude lost all his hope then, and in the space where it had been was a terrifying emptiness.

  Harry stalked past him. Jude heard the door open and shut. Harry had left.

  A moment later the two guards returned. Jude stood—almost without knowing what he was doing—while the guards put the chains around his wrists and led him out of the room.

  They escorted him to the corridor that led to his cellblock, but instead of taking him all the way back, they unlocked the cuffs just inside the last sally port.

  “You’re on your own now, kid. Good luck,” one said, and with that they closed the door behind them, leaving him alone.

  He stood there for a minute, his mind a blank. Then he turned and started down the hall. There was a jog in the corridor, and as he rounded the bend, he saw them. Standing there, waiting. Lefty, Slim Slam, and the Professor.

  They stood, grouped in a loose triangle, blocking the corridor. Lefty smirked at him. “Nowhere to run to, Chicken Man. End of the line.”

  Jude looked at their faces, twisted and ugly with triumph, and it was as if a jolt of electricity ran through him. One second he was numb and empty, and the next he was filled with mindless rage.

  Jude had been angry before—but he had never felt anything like this. It burned his brain clean of any thought or feeling except for heat and a dull pounding in his ears. He started walking toward them slowly.

  “Watch out, boys, don’t let him scamper between your legs,” Slim Slam taunted, and he stepped forward to meet Jude halfway.

  28

  JUDE WOKE IN the infirmary, woozy from the drugs pumped into his system. His moments of consciousness were scattered, and it was hard to keep track of the time. He didn’t know if it had been only a few days or if it had been weeks. He tried to tell them he didn’t want any more shots, but the orderlies—all prison inmates with good records—didn’t listen. One man told him he wasn’t going to risk his cushy job without a little persuasion. Did Jude have an extra pack of cigarettes tucked away somewhere? But Jude didn’t have anything, so he got the shot and floated away again.